


10 Drabbles for 10 Songs in 20 Minutes (CM)

by blythechild



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Case Fic, Death, F/M, Gen, Implied Relationships, Inspired by Music, M/M, Secret Relationship, Sexual Content, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-19
Updated: 2012-02-19
Packaged: 2017-10-31 11:08:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/343385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blythechild/pseuds/blythechild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a writing challenge that I've done before: you take your iPod, put it on shuffle, get 10 random songs to serve as inspiration for 10 drabbles (short stories or scenes) based on one fandom. You're supposed to spend 2-5 minutes writing each story - I cheat a little if a song spawns a good scene. Plus, I tend to spend time editing them afterwards - no one appreciates tense slippage or spelling mistakes, do they?</p><p>These drabbles are not connected. They are just what the song or its lyrics suggested to me at the time. The titles of the songs are at the beginning of each drabble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	10 Drabbles for 10 Songs in 20 Minutes (CM)

**Author's Note:**

> Lola (my iPod) was on an angsty bent for this challenge so most of these storys/scenes are dark. Also, most of these offerings are Reid-centric, although there are different pairings and not all of them are about relationships.
> 
> These stories contain mature themes and should not be read by those under the age of 14. This is fanfiction and as such I do not claim ownership over any characters herein. It was created as a personal entertainment.

**1\. A Thousand Years – Sting**

The day she is put to rest is beautiful and bright and cold. A perfect day.

They walk her out, dressed up in a box and a flag, and place her next to the neatest pile of dirt that she has ever seen.

_Stop focusing on the details. Look at them._

Morgan is impossibly solid, his back straight, his face blank under opaque sunglasses. Hotch is the same except for tiny moments of panic. He’s thinking about another funeral for a different woman. He and J.J. look suitably gloomy, and they are doing everything but looking in her direction. It would be an awful tell if anyone was paying attention.

Seaver is there but it’s just for team cohesion. Every thing she does is designed to make her assimilation smoother. She remembers when _she_ had to do that, but that was a lifetime ago. 

Garcia and Reid are standing close to each other, holding on to one another like their lives depend on it. They are the only ones crying, their heads bowed towards one another trying to make their ungovernable grief as private as possible.

Rossi stands alone, like a soldier at attention. She knows that he’ll get into whatever he feels over a bottle of scotch later on tonight. Maybe _two_ bottles of scotch.

Her own tears prick at her behind her sunglasses. Maybe it was a mistake to come. This grief will twist into guilt and make her slip up. She’ll either make it back to make it up to all of them or she won’t. There’s no use in pretending that she has any other options. She tried to save herself once out of fear, now it’s time to do it for love.

No one remarks on the dark woman across the cemetery who pockets her binoculars and walks towards a waiting taxi.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**2\. Armor & Sword – Rush**

The water stretched out forever. Flat, pale, shining in the morning light. The beach was equally pristine. From behind the window looking out, it seemed to him that he might be the last person on the planet. Far from being terrifying, the isolation seemed strangely beautiful. Desolation had its upside: no one could hurt you if you were the only person left.

He felt her walk up behind him. The angle was wrong so he didn’t see her in the glass, but she was there nonetheless. He could _feel_ her thoughts. Sometimes she wanted to fix things so badly that it seemed like she was shouting at him even though all she really did was stare and say that she was sorry. He just wanted time to be angry. Was that so much to ask?

“Good morning.” He said. “I made coffee.”

“Oh, thanks.” She didn’t move.

“It’s beautiful here. Like the desert…”

She let out a breath and he knew that she was smiling. “I thought that you’d like it. Kinda like home for you, but alien enough for you to experience it… whatever way that you want.”

He turned to face her and leaned his back against the window. It felt cool against his bare skin. He placed his hands in his pants pockets and stared at her. She was dressed in linen, just like him – he guessed that it was the thing to do in New England regardless of the weather. Her clothes made her skin look paler, her dark hair and eyes stood out in startling contrast. Those eyes, that darkness… _that_ was her weapon because it belied all of the other defenses that she had. It could draw you in and cut you but it could make you so happy at the same time. 

“You need to let me be angry, Emily.”

She nodded slowly. “But is that all you are?”

“No.” He admitted as he stood up and away from the window. “But anger is a powerful force. You lied to me – let me believe that the one I loved was dead – so that you could catch a terrorist. Call it selfish but I hoped that there were some things that you couldn’t do to me. I feel like I should’ve been more important to you than Doyle.”

“You _are_.” She stepped into him but stopped short of touching him. “That’s _why_ I did it. No force in the world could cause me to hurt you, unless it was to save you from further harm, Spencer.”

He stepped closer to her. His breath would graze her face at this distance. “That’s twisted… you know that, right?”

“Yeah.” Her lips brushed his as she spoke, but nothing more. “But people who carry as much emotional armor as we do probably do ten twisted things before breakfast. You have to work with what you’ve got.”

“Hmmm.” He took the smallest of kisses from her lips. “Psychologically speaking, that’s probably a sound assessment. So, given that premise, do you think that two such heavily armored creatures, with a history of deception and doubt between them, can achieve the happy pair bond that they both crave so desperately?”

She kissed him back lightly. “You’re only as good as the effort that you put into the enterprise. No one gets to their heaven without a fight.”

He smiled and pressed himself against her. “I would have to agree with that. But you need to let me be angry…”

He kissed her – the deep genuine sort of kiss that he had been holding back for weeks. She slotted herself into the places where she knew that she fit with him, and he was thankful that she seemed to be keeping her thoughts to herself for the moment.

He pulled his lips from hers momentarily. “So, coffee?”

“Absolutely.” She agreed but made no attempt to break free. The coffee went cold as she allowed him to be angry with her.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**3\. No Ordinary Love – Deftones**

Hotch answers the door and finds Reid on his doorstep.

“Reid.” He is instantly nervous. “Is something wrong?”

“Hi.” Reid waves awkwardly. “Sorry to bother you so late but I needed to drop this off.”

Reid hands him an envelope.

“This couldn’t wait until tomorrow.”

“I think that it’s best to do it now.” Reid’s expression is strangely neutral. He’s normally very expressive.

Hotch opens the letter, makes it halfway through and then glares at Reid.

“What’s the meaning of this?”

“It’s time, Hotch.” Intense sadness leaks from behind Reid’s neutral mask and Hotch’s stomach suddenly threatens to expose his emotions right there on his front stoop.

Hotch looks down at the letter again because he doesn’t know where else to look. _I hereby tender my resignation from the Federal Bureau of Investigation…_

Footsteps patter behind him in the house. “Hi, Uncle Spence!”

“Hi, Jack.”

“Whatcha doin’ here? We already had dinner. Did you come here to tell me a story?” Jack looks up at his father, his eyes alight with joy. “Can Uncle Spence read me a story, Dad?”

“No, Jack.” Hotch’s throats closes up.

“Some other time, okay, Jack?” Reid lies to his son effortlessly. Hotch knows that Reid will never come to his house again. “Maybe you can get your dad to have another bar-be-que and have everyone over. Remember how much fun we had the last time?”

“Yeah!” Jack looks back at his dad. “Can we do that Dad?”

“Sure thing, pal. Sounds good.” He forces a smile. “How about you go get ready for bed and pick out a story, okay? I’ll be there in a minute.”

Jack scampers back inside. Hotch turns to Reid and doesn’t bother to hide the shock and betrayal any longer. 

“Don’t do this, Spencer.”

“I’m freeing you, Aaron. Look at everything you have.” He gestures vaguely towards the house. “A home, a son, your position at the Bureau… you have a lot to lose. You’re not ready to risk any of it. I don’t think that you ever will be. I can go anywhere, do anything…”

“Yes, well, we don’t all have the luxury of being coveted…” The bitterness shocks him.

“Aaron, please – don’t deflect.” Reid seems alarmingly in control. “We’ve never discussed this, never even admitted to it before tonight… I was half expecting you to give me the ‘we’ll miss you but I understand’ speech and a farewell chuck on the shoulder.”

“But part of you was expecting _exactly this_ …”

“Which is why I did this away from the office and all of the watchful eyes there.”

The final token of consideration blindsides Hotch and he is overcome by all of the time that he had, and didn’t use. How could Reid betray him when he betrayed Reid first?

The silence stretches out awkwardly until Reid takes the situation in hand. “I’ll finish out my case load and then I’m gone. It’ll probably be a week, 10 days maximum. That’ll give me time to make my good-byes as well…”

_A week! God, I just need more time…_

“Where will you go?” Hotch croaks.

“I don’t know yet. D.C. for now, but Cal Tech has offered me a position… I might go back to Las Vegas to be closer to my mom…” He looks at Hotch and his face softens a fraction. “I’m not leaving the planet. You’ll be able to find me if you ever need me.”

 _If I ever need him…_ Reid reaches out and squeezes Hotch’s arm. “Good-bye, Aaron.”

Hotch lets him get halfway down the driveway before he calls out his name. He’s right behind Reid as he turns and crushes him to his chest pinning him there with his arms. He hasn’t held Reid this way since his kidnapping, back when Hotch was married and it was just professional concern for a colleague. That’s what he always told himself.

They stand in the driveway frozen in the first and last acknowledgment of what they could have had. When Reid pulls back, there are tears in his eyes. He has already said his good-bye so he just stands there and let’s Hotch hold his face in his hands.

“Good-bye, Spencer.” Hotch closes his eyes to prevent the tears and to hide the shame of knowing that the only thing preventing him from happiness is himself. Reid slips from his arms and walks away. Hotch watches him until he turns the corner at the end of the block and disappears. Reid never looks back.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**4\. Born To Kill – Matthew Good Band**

Hotch is half sprawled across the bar top when Reid catches up with him. He turns to the bartender, who’s wearing a look of consolation. _Been there. Done that._

“Thanks for the call.” Reid slides the man two fifties. “What do I owe for his bill?”

“Don’t worry. Your friend has a generous tab and he pays it religiously at the end of each month. Just get him outta here.”

So the drinking has become a habit. Reid hasn’t been paying enough attention. 

“C’mon Hotch, get up.” He slings Hotch’s arm over his neck and grunts as he shoulders the older man’s weight. 

“Lemme go, ‘m fine…”

“You’re so drunk that your pores are leaking alcohol. If I struck a match near you right now, you’d probably burn for a week.”

“’Snot very scientific…”

“Shut up, Hotch. Your permission to be critical of me gets rescinded after the third glass of scotch.” They have reached Reid’s car and, with some manhandling, Reid unceremoniously dumps his boss face first into his backseat. _Please don’t throw up back there._ Hotch groans.

“How did the bartender know to call my number?”

“I told him to.”

Reid looks at Hotch in his rearview mirror. “Why?”

“I’ve got a problem. It’s something that you understand…”

Reid’s features harden. “I won’t enable this, Aaron. Don’t think that you can maneuver me into doing that.”

“No.” Hotch starts waving his arms erratically. “It used to be a shot to get me through the day. To get through… Haley… now, it’s more than the less I say I do… ‘M scared, Reid.”

Reid remembers the bliss of oblivion and the desperate need to get there more and more often. He remembers the whispered promise of happiness and its crushing denial. He remembers the pain of resuming his life without a filter. He looks at Hotch’s bloodshot desperation staring back at him from the back seat and sees himself.

“Okay, Hotch” he sighs, “Okay.”

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**5\. Save Yourself – Stabbing Westward**

The guy is using the girl effectively as a shield. He can’t get a clear line on him, but he’s patient – it’ll happen.

“I want all of the cops to back away! I want the keys to a car – me and the girl are leaving and no one follows!”

“That’s not gonna happen.” He flexes his fingers on his grip a little to maintain blood flow.

“Oh yeah? I’ve got the hostage, man, _I_ make the rules!”

“Look, there are 20 armed cops outside. Even if you could convince me, you’d never get past all of them.

“Oh yeah?” He chokes the girl and she screams. He presses the muzzle of his Sig Sauer against her temple.

 _Quit antagonizing him, Rossi._ Hotch’s voice crackles over his earpiece.

“Before I joined the FBI, I was a Marine. I’ve dealt with situations like this more times than I can remember.” The girl stops thrashing perhaps sensing that her survival depends on not riling either of the men pointing a gun at her. “I can save your life – and hers – but there’s only one way that’s gonna happen and it doesn’t involve a car trip.”

“You think that you know me, man?” he sneers “You think that I need saving? I’m not some sniveling, weak-willed cun-”

At 1500 metres per second, Rossi’s bullet drops the guy before he realizes that he has leaned out from behind the girl enough to expose himself. A phalanx of FBI clones swarm into the house. The girl sobs and collapses into the arms of one of them.

Rossi stares at the hostage taker’s face, frozen in disbelief with a neat bullet hole between his eyes. “I can’t save you.” he mumbles under his breath.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**6\. I Hang On To My Vertigo – Rupert Hine**

The crime scene was chaos. The room was packed to the rafters with books, newspapers, drawings, meaningless coded journals, collected rubbish, medical specimens in formaldehyde, dirty clothes, forgotten possessions, antique audio equipment, a collection of 8mm film reels, and, more than likely, a few dead animal corpses. In the center of it all – pristine and on display – was the posed and modeled body of their latest victim. Lights were staged around her so that she possessed no shadow. The UNSUB had left her to be found that way in his private sanctuary.

Reid crouched and closed his eyes, massaging his temples. This was bad. This was the worst possible outcome, and he was horrified to realize that he _didn’t_ feel that way simply because they had discovered another body.

“Oh man,” Morgan moaned to himself. “This is gonna take forever to sort through…”

“There’s no point.” Reid stood abruptly.

“What?”

“Look at the staging. Look at the orgy of evidence left behind. This is his farewell gift. He’s gone.”

“This guy’s not gonna stop, Reid. You know that.”

“Of course, he’s not going to stop!” Reid snapped. Why did they all insist that this wasn’t just… over? “But do you really think that he’d just give up his… his _nest_ to us if he wasn’t going to change ever single aspect of his methodology on the next kill?”

Hotch had been watching the conversation. Now he spoke up. “He can’t change his pathology, Reid.”

“No, he can’t, but he can disguise it, mask it, now that he knows how we see him. Like a tracker distorting his footprints in the brush.” He stepped towards Hotch and stared him down. “In all of your years of experience, have you ever seen an UNSUB serve up his psychological make-up on a silver tray like this? He _led_ us here, Hotch… and its not because he secretly wants to be caught.”

Hotch’s lips thinned but he said nothing.

“That’s what I thought.” Reid turned away from him. “He’s gone.”

“You can’t know that until we’ve analyzed all of this, kid.” Morgan’s face was a silent plea.

“Yes I can know.”

“How? How can you know?”

“Because I’ve thought about this a thousand times and this is _exactly_ what I would do if you guys were chasing _me_. And I wouldn’t stop either.”

Reid walked out of the room leaving his wary partners to sift through the mountains of futility.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**7\. These Things – She Wants Revenge**

It’s raining but the others manage to find cabs. She drags them into the fetid alley beside the bar and pulls him into her.

“I need it.” She breathes as she bites his earlobe.

He tries to break free but it gets away from him just like every time before. Her hands fight past his waistband and begin tugging mercilessly. She bites and pulls and rubs and gasps. Headlights from the street streak across them and his pulse jumps; she’s always rougher after that happens. He doesn’t remember any of the mechanics but he’s in her, riding her up and down against the grimy brickwork. D.C. rain soaks through them as their gasps and body heat try in vain to hold off the chill. She contracts and cries out, and then it’s done. As always, after the high has passed, dread and emptiness fill him. He bends to kiss her lips and she pulls away.

“What for?” she asks.

He stares at her like she’s just pulled a gun on him. “How much longer will we do this, Emily?”

“Until I don’t need it anymore, Reid. Stop trying to make it more than it is.”

She leaves him in the alley disturbed, confused, overwhelmed… He slides down the brick wall and crouches with his head in his hands. He knows that he won’t stop until she tells him to, and when that happens, he’ll miss this.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**8\. The Chauffeur – Sneaker Pimps**

His life is about waiting and he’s learned to accept it. Being a driver is like being a hunter: you have to become good at being still and observing. Patience is one of his great gifts and he believes that it was given to him so that he could fulfill his destiny. But not everyone believes in that sort of thing. Certainly not these bureau agents.

He makes runs from Quantico to the private airstrip several times a month. Its not always the same team, but he has driven this group often enough to take an interest in them. They are always preoccupied – they never see him. He finds this deeply satisfying. By the way other agents defer to them, he knows that they are special somehow, but to him they appear freakish. There’s the skinny talker, the overcompensating black one, the mobster, the quiet one and the two hot chicks. He watches them in his rearview mirror. They see so much, and yet, like many prey, they have large blind spots. They are so focused on what’s ahead that they’d miss an attack that came at them sideways.

His lips thin into the smallest of smiles, and then he sees that the quiet one has spotted it. He casually looks away and drives.

At the airstrip, he holds the door for them and they hurry towards the waiting jet. The quiet one is last. He puts his hand on the door and looks at him.

“What’s your name?”

“Markham, sir.”

“You’ve driven us often.”

“Yes.”

The quiet one stares for a moment. “Thanks for the ride, Markham.”

“Any time, sir.”

The plane takes off and he is grateful that they didn’t have any luggage this time – he’s not sure that he got all of the blood out of the trunk. 

He’ll have to watch the quiet one more closely in future. Even disciplined observers like himself can have blind spots…

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**9\. Face To The Highway – Tom Waits**

He’s pounding on her chest but her lips have already turned blue. _It’s cold,_ he tells himself, _the desert is cold at night – there’s still time…_

Strong hands clamp down on his shoulders trying to still him.

“She’s gone.”

He shrugs violently and starts CPR again. The strong hands grab him by the upper arms and wrench him away. He cries out and struggles against the grip. _There’s still time!_

“She’s gone, Reid! Stop it!”

He twists and strikes out blindly. He feels bone connect to bone in an unexpected way and pain lances up his arm from his knuckles. Morgan grunts and releases him as he stumbles backwards.

“Dammit, kid!” Morgan’s voice sounds wet and then Reid sees the blood dripping from his mouth. Rossi has appeared and is holding Morgan back, but it’s not necessary; the look on Morgan’s face is shock, not anger.

The others have converged on the little scene, their worried expressions alternately highlighted in the red and blue strobes from the squad cars. He is furious at them all; at the way they are looking at him as if he is broken somehow. _She could have been saved!_

“Reid, she was dead before we got here.” Prentiss has appeared in front of him, her soothing tone grinding into him like broken glass.

“Don’t you ever get tired of being a minute too late, Emily?” He steps towards her and thinks for a moment that he might hit her too.

Hotch steps forward. “Reid…”

Reid addresses himself to Emily as he waves off Hotch. “The best that we ever manage is cataloguing and organizing the dead. Times, places, methods… and its endless, just endless. At what point did _that_ become enough for you, Emily?” His voice breaks and she starts towards him but he stops her with a look. _I don’t want to feel better._

“The gun wants a hand, Emily, it always will.”

His rage spills over him, soaking him both inside and out. He turns towards the highway and starts walking, cradling his broken knuckles against his chest.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**10\. Live With Me – Massive Attack**

He wakes and for a moment he’s still lost in what came before. The sounds that the sheets made against them as they moved, her breath against his neck, the way he can’t remember anything before she showed up at his front door…

But it’s always the same. He wakes and he is alone with the smell of her on his fingers and his cock, and in his bed. His stomach revolts and he barely makes it to the bathroom in time. He’ll see her in an hour at the office but she won’t see _him_. It’ll be like nothing ever happened – again. She never talks about it and she barely has time for him, and he lets it happen over and over and over like the sucker that he is. He’d give up everything he had if she would stay with him. He only wants what’s owed him – what she promised with her body if not with her words. He could use the secret, but then she’d never be his – not really.

He gasps and all that’s left is the dry heaving. It’s hard but he’s made it this far. He can wait a little longer. He moves to the sink and splashes water on his face. He sees the familiar sharp lines, the high cheekbones, the dark smudges under his eyes and thinks, _Every day Henry looks more like me._ One day soon everyone will see it too.

His phone rings in the bedroom and he turns to get it. It’s the office calling, not her – never her. He picks up and wonders if she went home first to _him_ , or went directly to the Bureau instead.

“Reid here.” He pauses but isn’t really listening. “Yep, I’ll be there in 20 minutes…”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Psych ward](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1171412) by [the_silent_sea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_silent_sea/pseuds/the_silent_sea)




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